Sure, we live in the greatest city on earth, but every now and then we wonder what’s happening in other cities. To that end, a gander at namesake magazines from other cities.

There’s little doubt Los Angeles feels the pulse of Tinseltown, as per its cover package – “LA’s 75 Best Restaurants” and “Worth the Sweat: Six Boutique Gyms.” The magazine does, however, offer more. One intriguing cover story recounts the family murders tearing apart the proprietors of California’s popular Zankou Chicken chain. Plenty of quick takes in several other editorial departments, such as Hollywood buzz (Woody Harrelson says hot food is dead), and style (beaded bags are in)..

Beantown will always be obsessed with the Red Sox – win or lose – so predictably, the cover story of Boston magazine trumpets both its hometown team and its hometown TV star John Krasinski. The star of “The Office,” dressed in a Sox uniform a la Superman, is the lead character in a cover package of “60 Reasons Boston Rules.” It’s a nice wrap-up, especially for people who might want to spend more than a day there. The issue’s got a good profile of Ned Johnson, the local lad who built the giant Fidelity mutual fund into Boston’s last business dynasty. Mostly, the city is a readers’ town, and Boston tries hard to deliver.

Philadelphia magazine’s cover story on “the quaint notion of ‘the Philadelphia lawyer’ becoming a thing of the past” reads like last century’s news. But how about the story on 8-year-old girls getting bikini waxes! Moms have evidently gone completely bonkers. Whatever happened to Billie Jean King and Philadelphia Freedom? Elsewhere, a piece on oft-derided Phillies manager Charlie Manuel floats the idea that he’s actually a “genius.” With the revelation, buried deep in the story, that Manuel once took a hot bath with “40 or 50 naked Japanese women,” we’d have to agree.

Rejoice Americans! Turns out that not all foreigners hate us. As the cover story in this week’s issue of Time magazine points out, Pope Benedict XVI actually loves us – and not because he’s under some papal mandate to do so. The Pope, who makes his first papal visit to the US this week, also has a special affinity for New Yorkers. “There is every sort of person in New York, and they’re all helpful,” the Pope is quoted as saying. Maybe, but being nicknamed “God’s Rottweiler” probably encourages politeness in people. Also worth mentioning in this week’s Time is a two-page spread that briefly traces the magazine’s 85-year history. It is a subtle reminder after last week’s layoffs that newsweeklies still serve a vital and important purpose.

Green is the new black, which is why the latest Newsweek pours it on thick for the environmental crowd. The magazine, which sadly cut more than 100 staffers last week, puts together a cover package of seven stories ranging from who’s the greenest Presidential candidate (hint: it’s not Sen. John McCain) to what Iceland can teach the world about conservation (a lot). Newsweek also has a strong report from Beijing bureau chief Melinda Liu on how hosting the Olympics has fueled the feud between China and Tibet. Liu argues that instead of opening up after being awarded the Olympics as was hoped, Beijing’s determination to hold a scandal-free games has made the ruling regime even more oppressive.

What was that Madonna said about New York recently? That “it is not the exciting place it used to be.” Well, arriving just in time to make the singer eat her words is New York‘s homage to the 196 cultural works that have defined the city since the magazine debuted 40 years ago. Madonna’s main complaint was that the city has lost its cultural moxie since the 80s, but New York’s package of articles suggests otherwise. Take that, Mrs. Ritchie! City writers seem to have found a favorite whipping boy in the New York Knicks, as New York checks in with the latest article on the team’s losing ways. But the piece really doesn’t come up with anything new. We get it, the Knicks stink! No need to keep reminding us.

The only thing more obvious than a Knicks story is one focused on how celebrities manipulate their images – we’re sorry to report that this week’s New Yorker has just such a piece on George Clooney. Though Clooney seems laid-back, Ian Parker informs us that the dizzyingly handsome actor’s charm is the effect of being “more closely guided than most by a diligent inner director.” So Clooney’s personality is contrived? We’re shocked – shocked! – to hear this news. But not as shocked as we were to read Jeffrey Toobin’s in-depth look at Guantanamo. Seems corporate semantics have made their way into the Bush administration. Toobin notes that instead of moving forward with closing Guantanamo, Bush “is trying to rebrand it – as a successor to Nuremberg rather than as a twin of Abu Ghraib.” New name, same old problems.